Just been on Bouy wether and checked the conditions at Ranfurly, I am Sure Chris, Jimi and co are slaying them down there. I expect we will see a full report and some impressive pics on here over the next week

Figured they must have been fishing it been pretty quite on here over the past few days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It had better be darn good

 

Wayne, make sure you take 150- 300lb leader. 400g, 500g & a few 300g jigs.   The KJ400 spiral was good fighting fish but i think a bit long for my jigging style, I've left it behind with Lance (Enchanter) who will pass it onto Rick together with some T-shirts & caps from the sponsor.  Good luck buddy!

 

Will do the report tonight. Sorry for the delay folks - been away.

 

All the ones that count. He's got heaps of them.

 

Strong work boys..... JEALOUS doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling lookin at the pics....

 

Another batch of amazing pics! Superb. That bass is outragous, 90 years old? Wow. You guys must have been stoked to be able to anchor over night. Even more fishing time. You must convert the chomped Kings into tucker?

 

 

Chopsticks with 15 kg Trumpeter.

 

Trevor, captor of many fine Kingies.

 

Those JimiJigs are deadly on big Kingies.

 

Note the gloves chopsticks is wearing - $25 from Farmlands and tough.

 

On the Wednesday morning about 10 a.m. we left the Ranfurly and headed for White Island as the forecast was for increased wind. Indeed the seas were starting to get pretty trough like when we departed. We stopped at Lottin Point for a dive for crays and paua, then onto White. We arrived at the Island around 11 p.m. and everyone hit the sack while the poor buggers on the nearby Pursuit were taking shifts catching their livies for the next days fishing.

 

The morning brought another beautiful day and calm seas. Unfortunately, apart from isolated instances, the Kingies had lock-jaw for most of the day only coming on for about an hour or so in the evening. The next morning the lock-jaw continued except for a period of about an hour and a half. Shane really hit his stride in this period and virtually had hook-ups on every drop. This brief bite session soon came to an abrupt end and things went stone cold dead again even though the fish were there as evidenced by the electronics. That's fishing though.

 

However, the White Island Kingies were in the same superb condition as their Ranfurly brothers and sisters and because of the shallow nature of the water they fought like demons. Again we all got dealt to at one time or another. Jimi had his OJ 5000P (upgraded drag version) locked on an absolute monster fish that got sharked. Shane had a similar incident and got reefed. Chopsticks got reefed on a fish that was taking line on a fully locked up OJ 4000P (upgraded drag version). In all these instances we�re talking of drags around the 20 kilo mark. Don (of the 40 kilo bass fame) had a beautiful Kingie sharked near colour - the 60% which remained weighed 24 kgs.

 

We headed home after lunch and filleted and bagged the pukas, bass, trumpeter and sharked Kingies en-route.

 

Multiple hook-ups. Errrrh, I think this shot is actually at the Ranfurly.

 

Trevor, Jimi and chopsticks at White.

 

Trevor, strikes oil again.

 

Note the 300lb leader.

 

Enchanter anchored at White.

 

Trevor hooked up - again! Note the fine fighting style of this very experienced fisherman.

 

The Zest Super Deep works well at White.

 

As my mate Scotty says, "they don't make a bad one" and he's right.

 

Shane with a tagged fish.

 

Chris scores with his favourite orange Zest Super Deep 400 gm.

 

Jimi puts the hurt on a large beast at the Volkner Rocks.

 

The boys heading for home.

 

A couple of points worth noting.

 

Leaders. These need to be 150lb minimum and Jimi who is the one true Jigging Master uses 200/300lb leaders to great effect. His reasoning is that it gives a safety margin when the leader is damaged. It only takes a small nick to turn your 120lb leader into a 40lb one. This is pure logic and based on extensive experience by undoubtedly one of the best jiggers in the world. Do you really think a fish can see a leader in 60 metres or more of water where it�s pretty dark?

 

Jigs. Long jigs worked the best for us. The JimiJigs were, as expected, deadly. So were the Zest 470 gm Deep Slim, Zest 400 gm Super Deep and JM 500 gm Rocket jigs.

 

Jigging styles. We all had our own style of jigging and they all worked.

 

Tools. As previously mentioned, take some tools to at least do basic repairs to your fishing reels.

 

Charter operators. Without doubt Grae Lyn Charters, the operators of Enchanter are the best large charter operators I�ve ever experienced. The skipper Lance and his assistant Phil were always there to help and always encouraged and congratulated us after a successful capture. We were given beaut meals and continually supplied with drinks, cookies, sweets etc. Their knowledge is tremendous and they work really hard. There are no nasty or snide remarks like some skippers are apt to offer; just good humour and fun. The boat itself is made for jigging with low rails and long sides.

 

For a small operator, I'll add that Primo Charters is in the same league.

 

All pictures supplied courtesy of ChrisW.

 

The biggest Kingie was about 33 kgs. Re. bust-offs refer to the section on White Island above.

 

There will always be something bigger out there that would nail you to the rail and simply leave you shaking.  Its the littlies that you land!

 

Awesome guys

 

Special place and great conditions the good gear and hello look at the results...........gotta love it

 

Some of the armaments in the upstairs launchers.

 

How did you guys get on, did you strike bad weather?

 

Report in the "fishing reports" of our trip,and yep we got a wee bit of crap weather

 

Yes, same trip but not available yet.